Adam Foulds talks to Mariella Frostrup about his latest novel In the Wolf's Mouth, which follows the Allied troops through North Africa and into Sicily. He explores how the army inadvertently helped the return of the Mafia to that island and explains that for many, with the rise of the Mafia, the end of the Second World War was only the start of the troubles to come.

David Park and Naomi Wood discuss the challenging lives experienced by the partners of great writers and poets from the four Mrs Hemingways to the wives of William Blake and Osip Mandelstam.

Quick Reads was launched in 2006 to help to get people reading and to introduce them to the pleasures that fiction can bring. Lindsey Davis, one of this year's authors writing a bite sized novel, explains why she wanted to be part of this campaign and the challenges of writing a short book for non readers.

Mariella Frostrup hears from the Open Book listeners, as they share their favourite heroines.